CETA and public services

Analyse approfondie 10-02-2017

EU-Canada negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) began in May 2009 and concluded in September 2014. Signed in October 2016, the agreement's overall aim is to increase flows of goods, services and investment. This publication analyses the extent to which public services are protected in CETA. The trade agreement takes the public sector into account by means of a (general) public sector carve-out and specific reservations introduced by the EU and the Member States in the annexes to the agreement. These reservations apply specifically to health services, education services, social services, and environmental, energy and transport services. National reservations introduced by the EU Member States to complement EU-wide reservations vary greatly. To a large extent this is the result of the widely varying levels of liberalisation of certain services among Member States, leading some of them to see a greater need to protect particular sectors from foreign competition than others.